


Fragments

by thebatjokeswedeserve (nattherat)



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-02 14:18:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5251328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nattherat/pseuds/thebatjokeswedeserve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various ficlets and things like that about Batman, generally arkham-verse, but more like a kind of arkham/comics (pre-new52) offshoot-verse. Usually illustrated. Archived from my tumblr; thebatjokeswedeserve. (Quality varies because of them being spontaneous rather than planned, but I hope you enjoy them anyway!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (TKJ AU where Jeannie has a sister and she recognises the Joker.)

_He looks like shit._

_He’s a lunatic waving around a gun like he’s at a pep rally, giggling maniacally at his own crazed plan. He looks like shit._

**_It’s Jack._ **

_It’s Jack, and everything Abby had wanted to say to Jeannie’s missing husband is out of the monorail carriage window with the rest of their chances of survival. The good-for-nothing bastard who didn’t even show up to her sister’s funeral is here and **he’s the fucking Joker.**_

_She’d been scared before, heard that cackle on TV. Knew what it meant._

_She’d been terrified when he’d burst into the carriage, announcing gleefully that they’d all die in “tonight’s big show”._

_But now, almost toe to toe with him and staring down the barrel of a gun without fear, she can see clearly._

_It’s Jack._

**_And he’s a monster._ **


	2. As Things Should Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hoo boy, prepare yourself with some misery for this one!

In another Gotham, Batman frequently finds the man he saved from a chemical accident - Jack Napier - on the streets during his patrol. The man found to be an unwitting accomplice in the Red Hood gang’s activities and tossed back into Gotham with simply a “Don’t let us see you again”.

Sometimes Jack is trying to help himself into grocery shops for food, but more often than not he’s on the receiving end of an attempted mugging. One that becomes much more violent when the perpetrators realise Jack isn’t carrying a cent on him.

He claims he no longer has anywhere to go. Batman believes him.

He’s seen the sodden mattresses and burning trash cans. The first two times, he simply warns the man after stopping him from getting in over his head. The next three, he begins to take note.

The  _seventh_  time he finds Jack bumbling along alleyways, managing to only merely survive rather than live, his eyes hollow with no spark within them, Batman grabs him and deposits him unceremoniously at the doors to Wayne Manor where Alfred waits.

Jack wanders corridors rather than streets after that, and over time some colour returns to his cheeks. He’s even able to smile sometimes, and he can be quite funny, though his humour errs on the side of being overly self-depreciating. It turns out he’s good with paperwork, has a real eye for noticing patterns and keeping everything in order. Wayne Enterprises is happy to take him on.

This humble and slight man, with a sharp sense of humour. Bruce falls in love.

This quiet and unassuming man with an eye for noticing things discovers the secrets of Wayne Manor. Batman falls in love.

Still, despite everything, Jack’s smile never fully reaches his eyes. Sometimes Bruce isn’t sure Jack is there at all, that whoever Jack was died before they even met. That he’d saved Jack physically from certain death at Ace Chemicals, but he’d lost him before that.

Sometimes Jack asks Bruce if he ever feels as though they were supposed to be something else. As though everything is not quite right.

“No,” Bruce lies. As he’s lied before, desperately and selfishly holding on to Jack.

“This is exactly the way things should be.”

 


End file.
